By DAVID JONES

Published: March 6, 2003

The travel industry and civil liberties groups are sharply objecting to government plans for a new airline passenger screening program, saying it could subject Americans to intensive background checks without adequate controls on how the information was used.

The proposed program, an upgrading of current profiling systems, would involve electronic checking of the credit records and criminal histories, along with checking whether the passenger is on watch lists of suspected terrorists. The screening would be done by the federal Transportation Security Administration.

Based on the results, each traveler would be assigned a risk level. Those deemed to pose a danger would be barred from flights. The critics worry how the information about other passengers — whose risk rating will appear in encrypted form on boarding passes — will be used and protected from abuse.

The infrastructure for the new system is to be tested on Delta Air Lines flights through three undisclosed airports beginning later this month. Transportation officials said yesterday that no personal information about travelers would be collected during the 120-day test beyond what is used in current screening systems.

But travel managers are unhappy about the plans. "People are very concerned," said Mark A. Williams, president of the Association of Corporate Travel Executives, a group of 2,500 travel managers, agencies and industry executives from more than 30 countries. "I hate to use the word offended, but they feel it is an invasion of their personal privacy."

James Loy, the retired admiral who heads the Transportation Security Administration, said last week that the system was "being designed to serve our national security without sacrificing individual privacy."

In a statement announcing that the government had hired Lockheed Martin to develop the system under a $12.8 million contract, Admiral Loy said: "Concerns about privacy are understandable. As we address such concerns, we believe that the public will come to have a higher comfort level in air travel."

The program has so angered some passengers that a movement is brewing on the Internet for a boycott of Delta if it carries out the test of the system, known as CAPPS II, for Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System. Delta officials yesterday acknowledged receiving numerous e-mail messages and calls of protest.

"We take it seriously," said Catherine Stengel, a Delta spokeswoman. She said the airline was referring all the complaints to the Transportation Security Administration, part of the Department of Homeland Security.

Mr. Williams, who also manages travel for PricewaterhouseCoopers, said that a survey on Monday of members of the Association of Corporate Travel Executives showed that 82 percent of the 255 respondents considered the program an invasion of privacy. The same percentage said they would not trust the government's handling of personal data that would be collected.

A government proposal on the program said that the data would be retained for 50 years.

The survey also showed that 64 percent of respondents thought the program would discourage commercial flying, while 79 percent said that they would avoid flying on any airline that uses the system.

Several civil liberties groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Privacy Information Center, have voiced concerns, saying the program may be illegal under existing privacy laws.

Robert Johnson, a spokesman for the Transportation Security Administration, disagreed. "Not a single database will be outside the bounds the law allows," he said yesterday

Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the privacy information center, said his group might ask Congress to block the program. "We're not talking about border control," he said. "This is about who gets on a commercial airline. It could be someone flying from Des Moines to Providence. These are U.S. citizens."

he travel industry and civil liberties groups are sharply objecting to government plans for a new airline passenger screening program, saying it could subject Americans to intensive background checks without adequate controls on how the information was used.

The proposed program, an upgrading of current profiling systems, would involve electronic checking of the credit records and criminal histories, along with checking whether the passenger is on watch lists of suspected terrorists. The screening would be done by the federal Transportation Security Administration.

Based on the results, each traveler would be assigned a risk level. Those deemed to pose a danger would be barred from flights. The critics worry how the information about other passengers — whose risk rating will appear in encrypted form on boarding passes — will be used and protected from abuse.

The infrastructure for the new system is to be tested on Delta Air Lines flights through three undisclosed airports beginning later this month. Transportation officials said yesterday that no personal information about travelers would be collected during the 120-day test beyond what is used in current screening systems.